


Abigail Investigates

by orphan_account



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Gen, Heist, High School, Latin, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An evil geography teacher, anonymous messages in a dead language, stupid teenage boys, Catullus 16, and daylight crime. Abigail Kamara—trainee witch and amateur detective—is on the case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Great Russell Street

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's my first entry for the Countdown to Foxglove Summer, and also, my first ever Rivers of London fic! (So, you know, let me know if anyone seems OOC, haha.) It's also my first serious attempt at first person in a _long_ time. This is the first of a provisionally-three-part series focusing on Abigail Kamara and her adventures, and it's intended to slot neatly in between Broken Homes and Foxglove Summer without being _too_ badly jossed. And yep, that means possible spoilers for all four books! Not so much in this installment, but it's a bit of a prelude (so that I can introduce OCs and stuff), and as I get further into the mythos there will be more spoilers.
> 
> Enjoy! C:

It’s very hard to get in trouble when you’ve got a protective charm around your neck—trust me, I haven’t taken mine off for at least five months. Mum says the leather strap’s going to get rank, but she doesn’t understand that it’s _magic_. Magic doesn’t go stale, magic doesn’t get smelly, and magic—for maximum effect—must be consistent, which is why I haven’t taken the necklace off.

And besides, I can barely get the thing over my hair!

So maybe it wasn’t a specific charm against geography teachers, but Mrs. Warren hadn’t been giving me any grief lately. She’s a big white woman with hair almost as curly as mine and a voice like Nigella but with a smoking habit, and I’ve always been convinced that she has it in for me. Once, Jessie Leonard copied my essay the night before it was due, and Mrs. Warren gave hers a better mark. Obviously, she hates me! But she never noticed when I sat and did my Latin homework in class, so that was a point in her favour.

“What’re you doing?” Jessie whispered, leaning over Mark Huang to get an eyefull of my conjugations. She was always trying to copy off me—one day, I thought, I might write something that was just plain _wrong_ , and see if Mrs. Warren _still_ gave her a better mark.

“Latin,” I said, pushing Jessie away by her forehead. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” she said. “I got an A in Italian.”

“Latin is _different_ ,” I said. “You can’t just—”

“ _Abigail Kamara_.”

I looked up slowly. Mrs. Warren was staring right at me.

“Yes?” I gulped.

“Would you be able to name the three types of tectonic plate boundary, or were you not paying attention?” she asked.

“Uh.”

“I thought not,” she said.

“Wait, Mrs. Warren, I know this—uh, divergent, convergent and—”

“Transform,” Mark said. I stuck my tongue out at him.

“Pay more attention, Abigail,” Mrs. Warren said.

I sighed and shoved my Latin homework under my geography notebook. It wasn’t fair—Mark had spent the whole lesson reading manga on his phone and Mrs. Warren hadn’t asked _him_ to answer anything.

“Serves you right for doing Latin in class,” Jessie said.

“Whatever,” I said. “Let’s just get lunch.”

Jessie glanced sideways at Mark, his eyes still glued to his phone screen. “Let’s go by the loo first, Abi.”

“I’ll meet you under the tree,” Mark said.

Jessie and I hightailed it to the girls’ loo near the music rooms, which were always empty because no-one wanted to hear the year tens playing the same Sara Bareilles song  over and over on the piano. We covered our ears as we went past.

“I don’t really need to pee,” Jessie said, stopping at the sink.

“Neither do I,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Someone’s been leaving notes in my locker,” she said. “I was hoping you would help.”

I couldn’t help it—I laughed. “I’m not exactly an expert on romance,” I said.

“I never said this was romance!” Jessie said, pulling a face. “Ugh. I mean, it probably _is_ romance, but just—just, have a look at this, will you?”

She flipped her backpack around in front of her and reached into the back pocket, pulling out five scraps of paper. “This one was the first, I think,” she said, handing it to me.

“ _Meae deliciae, mei lepores_ ,” I read aloud. “This is Latin!”

“Yeah, genius,” Jessie said. “What does it _mean_?”

“Well, it’s definitely a love letter,” I said. “ _Meae deliciae_ sounds like it means ‘my darling’, but I don’t know what _lepores_ means. Have you tried googling it?”

“Sure,” Jessie said. “I’ve googled them all. It just gives me a bunch of crusty Roman poetry. I can’t understand any of it.”

She spread the other notes out on the bathroom counter. “These are the others.”

Together, they seemed to form a poem: 

_meae deliciae, mei lepores,_  
 _usque ad milia basiem trecenta_  
 _sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum._  
 _ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti,  
_ _et tristis animi levare curas!_

“I don’t know half of these words,” I admitted. “ _Et_ means ‘and’.”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “Duh. Will you translate them for me, though?”

“No,” I said, “I don’t know enough grammar yet. But I know someone who does.”

“Will you ask tonight?”

“Yeah,” I said. It was about time I paid Peter a visit, anyway.

When we got back to the tree, Mark had finished his lunch and was still on his phone. “You guys took a while,” he said.

“Surprised you noticed,” I said.

* * *

After school, I took Jessie’s love letters to the Folly. Peter’s house—or workplace, or whatever—was the most fantastic place I’d ever been. I got there on the tube, but it always felt like I’d taken a TARDIS instead. It was a pity I only ever really dropped by for Latin lessons. When I’m a fully-qualified witch I’ll be able to work there, but Peter says I have to finish school first.

Molly let me in, and Toby the dog rushed around my legs as I made my way to the drawing room. Peter had been pretty down lately—something about a girlfriend, I think—but he was doing a good job of not showing it.

“What’s this, then?” he asked as I put the letters out in front of him.

“Poetry,” I said. “My friend Jessie Leonard’s been getting them in her locker. I need your help with the Latin.”

He picked up the first one. “ _Meae deliciae, mei lepores, usque ad milia_ …” he said. “My darling, my—uh, wits? Charms? Up to… thirteen thousand somethings… this is definitely poetry. Prose is never half so impenetrable.”

“Yeah, Jessie said she googled it and it was some poet.”

Peter nodded. “That seems like a good place to start.”

The tech cave in the Folly’s coach house was apparently the only place where they could get wifi, and Peter booted up his computer and started typing in Jessie’s poem.

“Well,” he said, “it’s definitely Catullus.” He frowned. “ _Don’t_ look him up on wikipedia.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Let’s just say that these are a bit more tame than his usual.”

I didn’t press him any further. Peter had pulled up a Latin dictionary and after a bit of grumbling about gerundives we had a translation:

_My darling, my charms,_  
 _Up to thirteen thousand kisses_  
 _But however this cannot be considered enough._  
 _So that, if you have wished for anything with your soul,  
_ _And relieve the sad cares of (my/the) soul!_

“They’re all from different poems,” Peter said. “Catullus cut-and-paste seems a bit postmodern for a high school love letter.”

“There’s no shortage of pretentious twats at our school,” I said. “And Jessie’s hot. Any one of them could have sent these!”

Peter sighed. “Now that we’ve translated them, I think that’s this mystery solved.”

“Yeah,” I said. I’m not going to lie—I had hoped that it would be a bit more interesting. But it was just plain old love poetry. Jessie would be disappointed.

* * *

“Ugh,” was Jessie’s reaction to the translation. “This is so gross. Who writes about ‘thirteen thousand kisses’ and ‘sad souls’?”

“Poets,” I said. “Who’s coming top of English?”

“How would I know?” she said. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to go out with anyone who’s sending me this sort of stuff.”

“A good life choice,” I said.

Jessie looked at her watch. “We’ve got ten minutes ‘till geography.”

“Great,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ve got to go by my locker and pick up my notebook first.”

“Your locker is on the other side of the building!”

“What can I say, I plan ahead.”

We made it to the lockers in a record four minutes, and Jessie froze in her tracks. There was another note.

“What does it say?” I asked, pulling my notebook out of my locker.

“I don’t know, you’re the Latin nerd!”

“ _Munus hoc mihi maximi da, Jessica, risus_ ,” I read, “10:15, Saturday.”

Jessie raised an eyebrow. “Is that what it means? I thought ten would be like _dieci_ , in Italian.”

“No,” I said, thrusting the note in her face, “it says that in English. Right at the bottom.”

“What the—he wants to meet up?” She frowned. “But he doesn’t say where. Boys are so _stupid_.”

We were so busy staring at the note and looking for clues that we were late for geography. Mrs. Warren was not impressed. She even made us sit on opposite ends of the room. We met up again afterwards, on our way to maths, and Jessie shoved her phone into my hands.

“Look,” she said, “I googled it, plus the word Catullus, like you said. I think the original name of the girl in the poem was Colonia.”

I scrolled down her screen. “ _This_ is not about Colonia,” I said.

“Oh yeah,” she said, “that’s another one I found. Number 16. It’s _filthy_.”

Mark leaned over my shoulder. “Are you guys reading smutfic?” he asked.

“Latin poetry,” I corrected.

He grabbed the phone from me. “Shit,” he said, “Abi, you’re going to have to teach me Latin.”

* * *

That afternoon, Jessie came with me to the Folly. It was a Tuesday, and we had until Saturday morning to work out if there was any hidden message in the love letters, but we still wanted to find out soon, and it was that or homework. We figured there  _had_ to be a hidden message. Why else would he write “10:15, Saturday”? Unless he was planning on showing up at Jessie’s doorstep. That was a bit creepy, though.

We went straight up to the tech cave this time, not only with Peter but with his boss Nightingale. Well, Nightingale was only there to watch the rugby, but he was interested enough in the Latin that he agreed to have a look over the notes and see if he couldn’t improve on the translation.

“Peter has done a fairly good job,” he said, putting aside the piece of paper where we’d written the translation. “Knowing Catullus, I’d guess that it’s ‘ _my_ soul’ as opposed to ‘ _the_ soul’, but everything else seems correct.”

“Do you know number 16 too?” Jessie asked.

Nightingale pulled a face. “Unfortunately, yes. Luckily for you, your suitor has better taste than that.”

“So let’s look at what we have so far,” I said quickly.

_My darling, my charms,_  
 _Up to thirteen thousand kisses_  
 _But however this cannot be considered enough._  
 _So that, if you have wished for anything with your soul,_  
 _And relieve the sad cares of my soul!_  
 _Give me the gift of your greatest laughter, Jessica.  
_ _10:15 Saturday_

“We think there’s a clue,” I told Nightingale and Peter. “Why else would he give a time and a day?”

“I’d suggest that it might be an acrostic clue,” Nightingale said, “but English translations of Latin are variable enough that you can’t rely on consistency. And there’s nothing remarkable about the text—it’s almost as though your suitor randomly chose the most dull lines of poetry he could find within the _oeuvre_ of Catullus. He didn’t even take any care with the meter.”

“Not to mention that Colonia and Jessica don’t scan the same,” Peter said, laughing a bit. “It looks like the author just wanted to be romantic. Maybe the location is still to come? It’s only Tuesday, after all.”

“But then why would he end on the time and day?” I asked. “It doesn’t make sense!”

“We’re assuming it’s a ‘he’ sending these,” Peter said. “Couldn’t it just as easily be a girl?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, frowning. “The only lesbian in our year hates Jessie because she put a dead moth in her lunch two years ago.”

“I remember that,” Jessie said. “Genna called me dumb, though, so she started it.”

Nightingale coughed politely, spreading out the notes on the table. “I hate to interrupt your reminiscence,” he said, “but are you sure that you’ve arranged these messages in the correct order?”

Jessie looked down. “Some of them _are_ from last week…” She paused. “Maybe these two were the other way around,” she said, indicating the fourth and fifth notes.

“The poem makes more sense that way,” I said.

“Not only does it make sense in English,” Nightingale said, “but I feel it rather elucidates the choice of Latin too.”

Peter switched the position of the fourth and fifth notes, and I looked at them again, remembering what Nightingale had said about an acrostic clue.

_meae deliciae, mei lepores,_  
 _usque ad milia basiem trecenta_  
 _sed non est tamen hoc satis putandum._  
 _et tristis animi levare curas!_  
 _ut, si quicquam animo tuo cupisti,_  
 _munus hoc mihi maximi da, Jessica, risus.  
_ _10:15 Saturday_

“Oh,” I said, “that makes a _lot_ more sense.”

* * *

We all assumed it was the British Museum, but just to be sure, I googled all the museums in London when I got home that day. Sure enough, there was a new acquisition being unveiled at the British Museum—an ancient Roman necklace—and its first viewing would be at ten in the morning on Saturday.

“Ancient Roman, huh? That explains why your mystery boy left the notes in Latin,” Mark said as we turned onto Great Russell Street.

Jessie and I had told him about the whole thing on Wednesday, because he’d demanded to know why we were reading Catullus. He had gone home and downloaded a collection of Catullus poems and was wildly disappointed that they weren’t all as dirty as number 16. “I could have been reading hentai instead,” he told us.

So on Saturday morning we all set out for the Museum. Although Jessie insisted on going alone, Mark and I thought that it was a pretty bad idea, up there with invading Russia in the winter.

“It could be something nefarious,” I’d told her. “You’ll need me there, at least, in case things go wrong.”

The Museum wasn’t open yet, but we were there early, along with a whole queue of people who also wanted to see the necklace.

I had _my_ necklace on—the magic one—as an extra ward against trouble.

“What sort of boy wants to meet at a museum, anyway?” Jessie asked. “It sounds pretty gay.”

“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” Mark said. I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the museum or the gay.

At ten, the doors finally opened, and we were pushed along with the crowd into the Greece and Rome wing of the Museum. The necklace was in a special display in the middle of a room with Roman jewellery and coins in glass cases. It was so crowded that we could barely see it, but we _did_ see Jessie’s mystery man.

“Oh my god,” she said, “is that Gavin Nicholls?”

Here’s the story: Gavin, a non-threatening white boy who lived in a three-story house, first asked Jessie out in year six, but she was never interested, and he’d been trying for months before she gave in and went on a couple of dates with him. She got bored pretty quickly, though, and dumped him on the quiet.

You had to give the boy points for trying, though—he _sent her love poetry in Latin_.

“Gavin, what the hell?” Jessie asked.

“You got my messages!” Gavin said. He gave me and Mark a dirty look. “What are your friends doing here?”

“We came,” I said, “just in case anything dangerous happened.”

“It’s just a museum,” Gavin said, rolling his eyes. “What could possibly—”

Before he could finish his sentence, the lights cut out. You know when your eyes have to adjust to the dark suddenly, and for a moment you can’t see anything? It was like I had gone completely blind. I felt Jessie grab onto my arm, and Mark nudged me.

“Famous last words,” he whispered.

It stayed dark for at least thirty seconds before the lights came back, and when they did, the scared chatter of the crowd stopped and someone screamed.

“What’s happened?” I asked, standing on my toes to see who had screamed. “Is it a murder?”

“Wouldn’t we have _heard_ if someone was being murdered?” Mark said.

I glared at him. “Shut up and give me a piggyback.”

Mark sighed, but he gestured for me to stand behind him and, bending down, hoisted me onto his shoulders. I could see over the heads of the crowd, and to the display case in the centre of the room. Reaching into my pocket, I checked the time on my phone—as I looked, the clock ticked over from 10:15 to 10:16.

“Let me down,” I told Mark.

“What happened?” Jessie asked as I got steady on my feet.

“Well, we’re not going to be seeing the ancient Roman necklace any time soon,” I said. “There’s nothing in the case.”

“Someone _stole_ it?” Jessie exclaimed.

“This is so exciting,” Mark said. “An actual heist! They’d have someone to turn out the lights, someone to disable security, and someone to climb down from an air vent or something and lift the necklace from its case.”

The room was emptying out, and people were shouting as security guards rushed in. The crowd pushed us away from the display case and towards the exit.

“Something doesn’t add up here,” I said, thinking aloud. “Why would anyone try to pull a jewellery heist in broad daylight? Why not wait until night? Then there’d be no witnesses, for sure.”

“But they cut the lights,” Mark pointed out. “I reckon they wanted a crowd to see the necklace before they took it away.”

“This wasn’t a heist,” Jessie said, “it was _performance art_.”

I thought about 10:15.

“Gavin,” I said. He had been silent the entire time. “Why did you want to meet Jessie at the Museum this morning?”

He shrugged. “My big brother suggested it, actually. He said they were unveiling some new Roman treasure, and that he’d heard it was going to be spectacular.”

“And did he tell you what time they were unveiling it?” I asked.

“Why do you care?” he snapped. I gave him a look. “Yeah,” he said, “fine. He told me the exhibit was opening at 10:15. So I can’t plan a date on my own. Are you happy?”

“Somewhat,” I said. “Did he give you the Latin, too?”

“No!” Gavin said. “That was my idea. He lent me his book of Catullus and helped me with the translations, that’s all!”

“You’re such a fraud,” Jessie said. “I can’t believe I ever went out with you.”

I looked back through the crowd at the empty display case. “Are you sure he told you it opened at 10:15? The website said 10:00.”

“No, he definitely said 10:15,” Gavin said. “I wrote it on the note for Jessie and everything.”

“Performance art,” I said slowly. “Whoever did this wanted an audience, and it sounds to me, Gavin, like you were recruited.”

“Are you suggesting my brother pulled off a jewel heist?” he asked. A couple passing us laughed. I didn’t think it was a stupid suggestion, though. I thought it made _too_ much sense.

“I am,” I said. “By my clock, the lights went out at exactly 10:15. Seems a bit too specific to be a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s absolutely a coincidence!” Gavin said. “My brother’s a med student. Why would he want an ancient Roman necklace?”

I shook my head, twisting the leather strap around my neck and pulling the gem on the end out from under my shirt. “Your brother was careless—he gave you too much detail, and he didn’t think you and Jessie would notice that the heist happened at the exact same time he told you to be here. But he didn’t count on _me_ being here.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that he _stole the necklace_ , Abi,” Mark said.

“Oh yes it does,” I said. “I’m practically a detective.”

“What are we going to do?” Jessie asked.

“We?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Jessie said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Every good detective has sidekicks. Although between you and me, I’m _definitely_ the heroine.”

“Besides,” Mark said, “we’ve done this much together. If you’re playing detective, we’re coming too.”

“And it’s _my_ brother you’re accusing,” Gavin added, like we needed reminding. “I’m not letting you do this without supervision.”

We made it out to the hallway and managed to detach ourselves from the crowd. Two police hurried past us with tape to cordon off the area. I wondered if they were Peter’s friends. I wondered if this might have something to do with magic—it was wishful thinking, but maybe he and Nightingale would be the next on the scene.

“So what now?” Jessie asked.

“Now? We _investigate_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought, especially since I'm new to writing for this fandom. All sorts of critique are welcome!
> 
>  
> 
> (And now for an acknowledgement! The Catullus text was sourced from [here](http://www.theaterofpompey.com/catullus/catullus_liber1.pdf), and each line was chosen based on its translation. However for the sake of authenticity I waited a couple of days to clear the influence from my mind and translated the lines myself, referring back to the above linked page to make sure that I didn't cock it up.)


	2. Gloucester Road

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so some of you may notice that I've made this into a chaptered fic instead of a series. It's still only going to be three parts, but after a bit of angst I've decided that it works better in this format. So, on with the show!

Being a detective is hard work—and any real detective worth their salt will tell you that without hesitation. The stuff they show on telly is fun, sure. You get to look for clues and cover your wall with a collage of evidence, thumbtacks, and string, but you also have to take notes everywhere you go, and be prepared to put them into something substantial to show your boss—who  is usually a better detective than you—at the end of the day.

My wall was pretty bare at the start of the Roman necklace case—just a couple of newspaper articles, a map of the British Museum, and a lot of sellotape. Mum wouldn’t let me put thumbtacks into my wall without buying a cork board first, so I was working with what I had.

Alright, so it wasn’t an official police operation. More like three-and-a-half competent teenagers with a healthy disregard for homework. I say three-and-a-half because Gavin Nicholls, the whiniest white boy in the Greater London Metropolitan Area, was being unco-operative. It was his brother who I suspected of being involved in the necklace heist, but Gavin didn’t believe me, and wouldn’t let me talk to his brother, even after Jessie tried to leverage him with the promise of a date.

Jessie and Mark were being really helpful, though. Mark’s uncle owns a newsagency, so he kept us up to date on all the media surrounding the heist. Jessie sat with me as I googled the museum’s floor plans and used Paint to draw up a detailed map of where there might possibly be air ducts.

We were doing a pretty good job of it, too. But being a detective is hard work, and we had no idea just _how_ hard it would be.

* * *

It was almost a week after the heist when I decided that we needed to stop sitting around and start doing some active investigation. The one lead we had was Gavin’s brother, but since Gavin wasn’t talking, I figured we should go to the source.

I met Jessie and Mark by our lockers on Friday afternoon.

“I’ve got maps open on my phone,” Mark said. “Just in case we get lost. GPS is the next best thing to a tracking device.”

“Pity we can’t stick a tracker on Gavin,” I said. Not for want of trying, I should add—Peter didn’t take very well to the idea. I turned to Jessie. “And have you got the recording app ready?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll switch it on just before I go inside.”

The plan was to send Jessie in first—that way Gavin wouldn’t get too suspicious. She’d been to his house before, and even met his brother once, so she was the perfect decoy. Mark and I were going to wait outside and ring Jessie every ten or so minutes. If she rejected the call, all was well. If she didn’t do anything, it meant she needed reinforcements. We weren’t entirely sure what sort of reinforcements we could provide, but we’d definitely think of something.

Gavin got straight on the bus after school, so we double-checked which bus he took and caught the next one. Jessie knew the stop, and we got off and did our best Following Someone walk to Gavin’s house. We couldn’t see him up ahead, but his bus had been a good five minutes before ours, so he was probably home already.

“We’ll hide behind this car,” I said, picking the fanciest on the street. “Remember to reject the call, Jessie.”

“I will, I will,” she said. “You two should, like, keep looking at the map, just in case anyone walks past.”

“It’s alright,” I said, “we’ve got this covered. Haven’t we, Mark?”

Mark shrugged. “Sure. We’re practically professionals.”

Jessie crossed the road with the poise of an actor, and without even a glance over her shoulder. Forget me and Mark— _she’s_ a professional.

“So what now?” Mark asked.

“Don’t be impatient,” I said. “You can just read manga on your phone until we need to call Jessie.”

“Eh,” he said. “I’ve already caught up on the latest chapter of—”

I waved my hand to cut him off, my phone buzzing with a text from Jessie. “Already?”

 _Brother let me in_ , she wrote, _and getting me a drink. I’ll question him._

“That sounds dangerous,” Mark said, reading upside-down. “Tell her not to be too obvious.”

“I get the feeling she knows what she’s doing,” I said. “Besides we’ve got… seven minutes until we need to call her.”

* * *

We were crouched behind the car for what felt like ages, but could have easily been less than fifteen minutes, before anything interesting happened—and by interesting, I mean  _disasterous_ .

“What are you two doing here?”

I looked up to see Gavin, a bag of crisps in his hand and a scowl on his face.

“Overprotective parents,” Mark said immediately. “We’re here in case you try anything funny with Jessie.”

“I’m not _with_ Jessie,” Gavin said, narrowing his eyes.

“Really?” I asked, playing dumb. “Because she definitely said the two of you were going out this afternoon. She’s in your house now, waiting for you, I guess.”

“Ugh,” Gavin said. “I don’t believe you for a minute.”

“No, really,” I said, “she’s in there. Was there, uh, some miscommunication?”

I was plucking at straws—the success of this plan had depended on Gavin being home as a gateway, but apparently his brother was trusting enough to take Jessie at face-value. That meant Gavin hadn’t told him about our suspicions, which was good, but it also meant that Jessie was alone in the house with a criminal—which was _bad_.

Gavin shook his head and walked around the car we were hiding behind. I leapt to my feet and pulled out my phone. “I’m calling for backup!” I yelled.

“Backup” was a bit of a loose term. Not being a certified detective, I had very few contacts in the police force, so it was down to my older brother who kept a cricket bat under his car seat, or Peter Grant.

I chose Peter.

“We need help!” I told him. “My friend Jessie—you remember Jessie—she’s on an undercover mission, but I think her cover’s been blown, and now Gavin is going to ruin all our hard work, and—”

“Slow down!” Peter said. “First of all, who’s Gavin? Second, _why_ is Jessie on an undercover mission?”

“There was a jewel heist,” I said. “We think Gavin’s brother stole the Roman necklace from the British Museum.”

I could hear Peter sighing. “You’re going to have to start from the beginning.”

I sighed right back at him—it wasn’t _my_ fault that I’d been too busy being a detective to tell him about my detective work, or to do my Latin homework. But I told him the full story anyway, and by the end he’d stopped interrupting and was listening carefully.

“It seems circumstantial,” he said. “You don’t get far with circumstantial evidence in this line of work.”

“But don’t you think it’s worth investigating?” I asked. “A lead is a lead.”

Peter paused before answering. “It’s just a hunch,” he said. “I tell you what, meet me at Gloucester Road station in half an hour, and you can help me with some real police work.”

I was about to respond when the door to Gavin’s house opened, and Jessie walked out in a huff, followed closely by Gavin. There was someone standing in the entrance, just behind the door and obscured by shadow. Criminals always hang around in shadows, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was Gavin’s brother watching us, if he’d caught onto what we were doing. I tore my eyes away from the door and back to Jessie and Gavin, who were walking across the street to us.

“—don’t care if he stole the Declaration of Independence, Jessie, that was _low_!”

Jessie rolled her eyes. “Wasn’t _my_ idea,” she said.

“Ouch,” Mark muttered.

“ _You_ two,” Gavin said, fixing us with a glare, “are going to be in _so_ much shit.”

“What are you going to do?” I taunted. “Call the police?”

“I’m pretty sure being a nuisance is illegal,” he said.

“Well, I’d love to stay around and be a nuisance,” I said, “but I have _detective work_ to do.”

We ran down the street laughing, and I’m pretty sure Mark gave Gavin the finger, but as Chief Investigating Officer I’d just like to state for the record that I definitely did _not_ sanction that. When we got around the corner we paused for breath.

“Nice excuse,” Jessie said. “Let’s get the bus to Leicester Square and go for ice cream. We need to reward ourselves.”

“Not so fast,” I said, standing up straighter. “I’ve got to attend to _official police business_.”

“Was that what your phone call was about?” Mark asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Peter wants me at Gloucester Road in about half an hour. It’s part of my apprenticeship, I think.”

“Boring,” Jessie said. “Mark? Leicester Square?”

“Right behind you,” he said.

* * *

I allowed myself a vindictive thought that Mark and Jessie would regret not joining me on official police business, but I didn’t for a moment suspect that I’d be right.

When I got out of the lift from the Piccadilly line platform at Gloucester Road station, my phone went from no bars to four bars of reception, and I got a text from Jessie:

_Choc raspberry ice cream!! Miss you xx_

I pulled a face at my phone, shoving it into my jacket pocket as I fished around for my oyster card. Whatever Peter called me here for was probably interesting enough, but was it interesting enough to miss chocolate raspberry ice cream with my friends?

Peter was waiting by the florist and looked up from his feet as I approached.

“You’re right on time,” he said. “Let’s get going.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’m providing a police presence at the Goblin Fair,” he said.

For those of you not in the know—as I was, at the time—the Goblin Fair is a hub of underground trade in magical items, and sometimes also a café. You won’t see it advertised in Time Out, but somehow people on the _inside_ have a way of knowing when and where the Goblin Fair is going to crop up. Usually, it’s held in a building site, and this one was next to a square just off Gloucester Road. The scaffolding and plastic sheets hid the skeleton of the building, and when we got inside, it was like walking into another world.

I trailed behind Peter cautiously. “Do you come to a lot of these?”

“Recently, yes,” he said. “It’s always good to have eyes and ears in the community. But we’re on the lookout for something particular here.”

I put two and two together. “The necklace?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Since you saw it before it was stolen, I’m hoping you’ll be able to identify it at a glance.”

“Alright,” I said, deciding not to mention that I hadn’t got close enough to see the actual necklace, and that I’d only seen a picture of it on a flyer, which was probably no better than what Peter had seen. “Is there a magical connection?”

“We have a register of magical items,” Peter explained. “The necklace had been flagged a while ago, when word got out that the British Museum had acquired it. No-one quite knows what it does, if anything, but it has an impressive pedigree.”

We passed a table where someone seemed to be selling gemstones, and Peter stopped to greet the vendor. I closed my eyes and tried to remember what the photo of the necklace had looked it. From memory, it was differently coloured stones embedded in interwoven strands of gold and joined by a clasp, but I didn’t think I could identify any of the stones if they were pulled apart and sold separately.

I felt like a bit of a fraud—but this was the chance of a lifetime, so I kept my mouth shut.

* * *

At the back of the Goblin Fair, there was a table with wares that I recognised. It was Artemis Vance, the man who’d sold me my protective charm. If anyone knew about necklaces—well, it probably wasn’t him, but a familiar face was reassuring amongst all of the strangeness.

 He recognised me, too. “Young lady! I see you’re wearing one of my charms about your neck. Could it be that I sold it to you several months ago?”

“At the Spring Court,” I said. “Have you done much business since then?”

“Alas,” he said, “trade is a privilege in my line of work, not an everyday occurrence. It is rare that I find much custom outside of the odd fair.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Do you trade in jewellery?”

“Do you think these charms are designed to be worn for beauty? The beauty in magic is not by design, it is by nature!”

“So you wouldn’t know where I could get an ancient Roman-looking necklace around here,” I said. “Say, something gold, with colourful gemstones…”

“Young lady!” he exclaimed. “Are you suggesting that my wares are any less than legal? I can assure you, I have maintained my professional standards for _many_ years, and I most certainly would _not_ trade in stolen jewellery!”

I took a step back. “Alright, I get it,” I said. “I wasn’t insinuating anything; I just thought you might be able to help.”

Artemis gave me an odd look. “You wish for my assistance? Very well, young lady, I will be vigilant for any sign of your necklace, and I wish you the best of luck in your search.”

“If your charm works like you say it does, I’ll have all the luck I need!”

* * *

Peter and I were in the building off Gloucester Road for two hours, before he decided that we’d seen enough. He said that some of the Rivers I’d met at the Spring Court occasionally came to the Goblin Fair, but none of them were there that day, so after I’d stood around while he talked to a bunch of strangers, I was tired and wishing I’d just gone for ice cream. We hadn’t found anything that could lead us to the people behind the heist, and Jessie kept snapchatting me pictures of ice cream. I knew they were just pictures she found on google, but it made me jealous anyway.

“Thanks for coming,” Peter said as we made our way to the exit. “It’s a pity we didn’t turn up anything, but sometimes items like our necklace can take months to hit the market.”

“Do they wait until the publicity stops so that they don’t make anyone suspicious?” I asked.

Peter nodded. “I’ll let you know when the Goblin Fair crops up again,” he said. “Until then, it’s best to leave it. Cases like this take a while to be resolved. I know you’re eager to help, but I feel like if Nightingale were here he’d be suggesting that you focus on your Latin homework.”

I made a show of sighing as loudly as I could. Latin homework was all well and good, but now that I’d experienced the excitement of a real case, all I wanted to do was be a detective. Being a witch would be fun, but it wouldn’t be half as fun as being a police witch.

“I’m not sold on Artemis Vance, either,” Peter continued. “Some people just _look_ like they’re hiding something.”

Someone in the crowd at the station had caught my eye.

“Like him,” I said, pointing.

We passed a man at the ticket barrier who looked like Gavin— _eerily_ like Gavin. If you’d put him in a room with nine other men who looked like Gavin, I’d have picked this one as his brother.

It was rush hour, and Gavin’s brother pushed his way through the crowd in a hurry. I tried to run after him, but he made it to the lift before us, and the doors closed behind him. I don’t think he’d noticed me and Peter at all.

“Who was he?” Peter asked.

“I’ll swear on _my_ brother’s grave that he was _Gavin’s_ brother,” I said. “You know, the thief?”

“Yes,” Peter said, “I remember. Are you _sure_ that was him?”

“Almost certain,” I said. “I’d recognise that white boy pout anywhere. Just our luck he’s not taking Circle and District.”

I was beginning to suspect that my protective charm was failing. It seemed like everything I did to try and solve the case of the necklace heist was futile—showing up at Gavin’s house hadn’t worked, there were no leads at the Goblin Fair, and now the suspect had just slipped out of our grasp.

What had he been doing in Gloucester Road, anyway? I wondered if he’d followed me, or if he was at the Goblin Fair and I hadn’t noticed him. Either way, the evidence was beginning to mount against him.

“Don’t worry,” Peter said. “We’ll track him down.”

“Taking my hunch seriously now, are we?”

“I always took it seriously,” he said, a little bit too defensively, I thought.

The lift came back up. By now, Gavin’s brother would be on a train and getting further away.

“Do you know his full name?” Peter asked.

I didn’t.

* * *

By the time I made it back to the estate, it was raining, and I was feeling as bleak as the weather—never mind the fact that I’d been caught in the downpour and my hair was a complete wreck.

Not only did I not know the suspect’s name, I was starting to get the impression that I didn’t know _anything_. I stood in front of my evidence wall, giving it my best blank stare, hoping that something would inspire me. Nothing did. At this rate, I was never going to make it to the Met.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I picked it up before the ringtone could start.

“Hello?”

“How was your _official police business_?” Mark asked.

I sighed. “The good news is that Gavin’s brother might have been at the Goblin Fair.”

“The Goblin—?”

“The bad news is that we didn’t catch him, and there are still no new leads in the necklace case. It’s _hopeless_ , Mark.”

“Maybe not,” he said.

“Yeah?” I asked. “What’ve you found?”

He laughed. “I swung by Gavin’s after Jessie and I got ice cream. It turns out he was much more open to discussion once I told him that I had nothing to do with your plan earlier. We spent a couple of hours talking about how much girls suck and playing video games.”

“Ew,” I said. “Did you at least get something out of it?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, “it reminded me why I only hang out with girls.”

We took a moment’s silence to think about how gross most teenage boys are.

“Alright,” I said eventually, “but did you get anything out of it relating to our case?”

“That too,” Mark said. “I’ve found out that Gavin has several older siblings, but that this brother’s name is Stephen, and that he’s just come home after reading art history at Oxford. He's doing medicine at UCL now, but he works part-time at the British Museum, doing educational stuff with school kids.”

I grinned. “So he’d know his way around.”

“Right,” Mark said. “But wait for the best bit: he specialises in Roman history.”

“This is becoming more and more likely,” I said.

Mark hummed in agreement. “But it still doesn’t get us any closer to catching him.”

I tugged at the charm around my neck. I wasn’t feeling half so amateur anymore. But it would take more than a well-picked hunch to catch a criminal.

“Unless,” I said, “we plan an excursion.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, feedback is appreciated(/totally necessary) C:
> 
> (Btw, if you know London better than I, please do nitpick about my locations. I'm trying to only use places I've been but there's a bit of extrapolation occasionally, haha.)


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